by Calculated Risk on 2/28/2007 11:26:00 AM

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports: Mortgage Applications Increase

This week’s results include an adjustment to account for the Presidents Day holiday. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 626.1, an increase of 3.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 606.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 5.4 percent compared with the previous week and was up 8.8 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 1.2 percent to 1943.5 from 1921.1 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 5.2 percent to 401.3 from 381.4 one week earlier.

Mortgage rates were mixed:

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.16 percent from 6.19 percent ...

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.92 from 5.81 percent ...

Click on graph for larger image.
This graph shows the Purchase Index and the 4 and 12 week moving averages since January 2002. The four week moving average is down 0.4 percent to 397 from 398.7 for the Purchase Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 43.2 percent of total applications from 44.9 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 21.1 from 21.2 percent of total applications from the previous week.